


Autumn Jaunt

by thewordwench



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Beauty and the Beast - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:00:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27056083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewordwench/pseuds/thewordwench
Summary: A follow up fluff fic to the one I wrote a few years ago (Come Here Please). Read that one first if you haven't already and then come back to this one! A sweet Beauty and the Beast fic.
Relationships: Adam/Belle (Disney)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	Autumn Jaunt

Consider reading my first fic "Come Here Please" as this work is a follow up of sorts to that one! :)

Amidst the bright yellow and red leaves a duo sauntered through the wood.   
One of them was a young woman with dark, chocolatey skin and a head of dense, dark curls wrapped in a thin chord of satin and gold leaf. She was dressed finely in a gown of gold that made her appear like one of the autumn leaves brought to life. Around her shoulders was a cloak trimmed with rabbit fur that shielded her skin from the season’s chill. On her arm was another cloak colored blue and silver. She tried her best not to let the garment drag one the ground and sully its material as she gazed bemusedly at her walking companion who trotted a ways ahead of her.   
The Beast moved this way and that, raising his large snout the wind to smell the many scents that called out to him. He moved on all fours, muddying the cuffs of his simple tunic in his haste to take in the nature around him. He was well aware that the girl was watching him but hardly minded. They had passed many a month this way, and indeed even a few years. She had seen and had fallen in love with him at what the Beast to be at his very worst. A few dirty shirt cuffs wouldn’t put her off now.  
The Beast felt so alive. The wind rustled through his fur and the cool air filled his lungs. With an utterance that was partly a roar and partly a laugh, he sprang from the ground and vaulted up a tree, using his claws to hook himself to its bark. The girl giggled from below, shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun with a gloved hand, shaking her head in wonder.   
“I will do well to remember that autumn walks put you in such a fine mood!” she called up to him.   
“The air is good for us both,” came his low, growling voice in return from somewhere up in the tree.   
“If only I could join you amongst the boughs!”  
“I’d be happy to wait up here for you should you try and attempt it,” returned his teasing reply.   
“Alas, such exertion would be much more than this dress will allow,” she called back. “Do come back soon or I will leave you here along with your cloak. I am not a coat hook!”   
She spied his big furry face peering down at her from between the high tree’s foliage. There was a playful glimmer in his blue eyes.   
“A pity,” he said. “For how lovely you look from where I stand. And what a pretty coat hook indeed!”  
The girl snorted and raised an eyebrow at her companion earning her a growling laugh in return.   
“Alright, alright, just a moment. Here I come!”  
She heard the crackling sound of snapping branches, and all at once, he appeared before her landing on his muscular haunches. The girl gazed at him pointedly, a hand to her fluttering heart.  
“I’ve asked you not to do that,” she breathed. “What should I do if you broke your leg?”  
He smiled at her coyly, “I believe we’ve been in a similar situation.”  
“Yes, but today my horse is back at the castle and cannot aid you,” she retorted, peeved.   
“When have you ever known me not to land on my feet?”   
Some of his arrogance from another life was beginning to show through, but it was different. It was softer, playful, and lightly derivative to ease her anxiety. “And besides, he’s as much my horse and yours now.”  
“Ah, yes,” the girl giggled, tying his cloak back around him as he crouched down so she could do so. “Because of your lengthy conversations.”  
“Quite right,” he said, straightening and adjusting the cloak to his liking across his broad shoulders. “Besides, you can’t be too cross at me. Look what I have brought for you, my dear.”  
He held a large leaf in his paw, red as blood at its center and stippled gold at its edges. The Beast grinned wolfishly as the girl’s eyes widened in appreciation at the sight of it.   
“I spied it from the ground and knew you had to have it.”  
“It is very lovely,” said the girl, and she meant it as the Beast tucked it gently behind the tie around her hair. She thanked him by stroking the fur above his nose.   
Then they set off arm in arm in the direction of home.   
*

“Would you come down from there?” the Beast barked as he stomped into the library.   
The servants had laid out a scrumptious supper in the dining room and he was eager to quell his grumbling stomach. But as usual, his companion was loitering high amongst the shelves on a ladder that reached nearly to the painted ceiling, leafing through some dusty volume the Beast’s mother had purchased when he’d been but a boy with human hands and foolish dreams.  
From where he stood, the girl was little more than a sweet brown splotch and a wink of gold gown amongst the tens of thousands of books. Though as she turned to face him, he could also see a flash of red; the leaf he had brought her was tucked behind her ear. She still wore it though they had long since returned from walk some hours ago.   
The Beast found something peculiar in the fact that she still wore it, something sweet and cinanmon-y that, though small, filled him up inside and overwhelmed him. In the grand scheme of his unusual life, the time that he’d known the girl was quite short, and the time they’d been committed to each other shorter still. Though deeply in love, the Beast was still learning to love and thus moments like these still caught him by surprise. He was discovering every day that love was filled with sweet and startling moments like these; it was like tasting caramel in a chocolate you’d at first assumed to be plain.   
So even as the girl replied sweetly that she would be right along, he’d had to turn away and take a breath so the moment wouldn’t overcome him.   
*  
They lay together in bed, partially lit by the glow of fat candles and a fire in the hearth. The girl was curled into him, her cheek nestled in the fur of his chest as one of his large paws lazilly stroked her abdomen. Through the fabric of her night gown, the Beast could feel the hideous scar from the hunter’s bullet that had torn through her on that horrible night. He had traded his humanity for her life, yet the scar still remained to haunt them both.   
“Tell me a story,” she said suddenly.   
The Beast huffed a laugh, “How about I read to you instead?”  
He reached over to the little table by the bed and touched the book she had been reading. As he opened it, the red and gold leaf fluttered out and landed on the sheets.   
“No,” the girl then replied, a smile in her tone. “I want to hear one from you. And put my leaf back please.”  
The Beast held the leaf in his claw.   
“You still have it.”  
“Of course,” the girl said, looking up at him, her brown eyes serious. “You picked it for me. I want to remember today.”  
The Beast put the leaf back in the book gingerly and leaned back. His tail twitched somewhere beneath the blankets as he frowned in thought.   
“Hmmm, a story… ah, once upon a time, there lived a beast in a faraway castle...”  
“I didn’t realize this was going to be about you,” the girl said, feigning disappointment.   
“Hush now,” the Beast growled.   
He tucked the blanket carefully around her sweet brown body and nuzzled the cap that protected her cloud of curls. In the hearth, the fire had burned away to cozy embers and the girl felt safe and warm.   
“Now then, once upon a time, there lived a beast in a faraway castle…”


End file.
